Rose Street

It was a calm day in late July. On Rose Street, Elizabeth Tennyson was half-asleep in her back yard.

The last fourteen years had not been kind: Where her hair had once been gold, it had gone steadily grey. Her skin was rather creased, and she resembled women far older than her forty seven years of age. This was due, in part, to her remaining family's waywardness, a raging temper, and the deaths of her husband, brother-in-law, and twin sister.

A loud crack removed all traces of sleep from her, and she sat bolt upright, heart pounding. She wondered who it was: Her niece, her son, or the thing that had killed her husband, back for her?

Grabbing the gun she had kept loaded since her husband's death, she stalked towards the back door. She was afraid, terrified, but she would fight this time.

Peering through the glass door, she let out a breath of relief. It was two children. One of them was dressed in the most peculiar style, admittedly, and had several long cuts across her legs – visible from Liz's point of view -, not to mention silver hair. The boy looked relatively normal, though she saw fangs.

"H-hello?" she said. There was still that ever present stutter to her breezy voice, but it was still better than it had been.

The children twisted to see her. The girl, she noticed, had pink eyes. "Are you 'Liz'?" the girl asked.

"Y-yes."

"Oh good. Gwen sent us to you, but her teleporting spells are wrong so often…" the girl trailed off, shaking her head. "Fade, will you get off me?"

"Sorry," Fade – the boy – yelped, obeying.

They stood up now. "I'm Ina, he's Fade," the girl – Ina – told Liz. "I think Gwen wants us to stay here or something…"

"She would," Liz muttered, devoid of stutter when she talked to herself.

A moment later, Gwen appeared. "Hello, Auntie." She kissed Liz's cheek. "They need to stay with you for a while – there are a few problems at home right now."

Liz smiled, "Y-you used to c-call Earth home, but y-you've moved on now."

Gwen smiled at her aunt, "I know. I'm going to set up wards for you. That okay?"

For answer, Liz nodded. Gwen glowed green, lips moving. No one heard the words she uttered, though Ina knew what they would be.

"W-well, I'll sh-show you w-where y-you're supposed to sleep," Liz stammered, beckoning at Fade and Ina. They followed her into the living room, where a mahogany door stood. She opened it and led them through, into another living room. "I-it's a family duplex, s-see? Y-you two can ch-choose rooms." She scurried through the door and out to the backyard again to resume – attempt to resume, rather – her nap.

"Weird," Ina said to Fade, after she'd shut the door. He nodded agreement. "Wanna look around?" He nodded, again.

Despite the fact that this half of the duplex was as clean as the other, it didn't look lived in. When they glanced in the kitchen cupboards, there was nothing. Nothing in the refrigerator either.

"I wonder why no one lives here?" Ina mused as they opened the door to one of the bedrooms. The bedroom was painted pink. Several pictures hung on the walls, and more sat on a small, cluttered bedside table.

Ina peered at one. "Oh my god. Fade, look! It's Gwen as a teenager, and…I think that's Koto, and Sarah. Oh! Ben and Risa are in there too, and so is K'thonya. There's even one of Gwen's grandpa!"

"Creepy," was Fade's response, "I wonder who lived in here?"

"Sarah," Gwen said, appearing next to them. Fade yelped, and Ina jumped.

"She did?" the demon girl asked.

"Yes. Well, this was her room when Koto, Risa, and she moved in at least."

"They moved in?"

"Uh-huh. They moved in after my parents were murdered and I just had half the house to myself." Gwen's eyes half-closed, remembering. "I know I had a death wish. I mean, two raccoon-demons and a dragon queen, both with half the universe after them, not to mention my cousin? Totally equals a death wish."

"Ok….Where's your old room?"

"Downstairs: Koto's room is next to mine, and Risa's is next to this one."

After a final look around the room, Ina dragged Fade to the next room. It was not Risa's room. Instead, it seemed to have belonged to Gwen's parents. There was a picture of their wedding.

"Oh wow! She looks just like Gwen, doesn't she?" Ina gasped. There were a few baby pictures of Gwen, which Ina giggled over. The last picture in the room showed Gwen and Ben at eleven, standing next to an old man, holding their fingers in peace signs.

They moved on, somewhat creeped out by the way every room had been kept looking exactly the same as it would have looked occupied.

The next room was Risa's – a person Fade had not met yet. Upon entry, Ina laughed. "This is so Risa's room!"

Fade was taking her word for it. Almost every square inch of the walls was taken up with pictures of Ben, Gwen, Koto, Sarah, or strange dragons and elves, and essays on the strangest topics with 'A+'/'100%' written on them. What wall was visible appeared to be bright blue.

They left that room alone as well, and walked downstairs. There was another living space down there, and they went into one of the rooms. It was quite plain, compared to the ones upstairs.

After some searching, Ina found a picture of Gwen – just Gwen – framed. It was sitting on a bookshelf in the room, hidden. "Koto's room," she pronounced. "He's totally in love with her – he's the only one who'd hide her picture." Some more searching procured a picture of Gwen with her arms draped around Koto's neck, laughing. He, of course, was bright red.

"Very cute," Ina giggled. The one other picture in the room was of Gwen and Sarah.

"I have one question," Fade began as they went to look in Gwen's room, "why do Koto and his sister have tails?"

"They're raccoon demons. It's weird. They come from another world, which was destroyed. Gwen accidentally revived their planet a few years ago, and they left Earth and the Realms to visit. Anyhow, they're half-demon. In Koto's case, the demonic blood is far stronger than his sister's because he got bitten by your father a few years ago – you would've been five at the time. It shows through his eyes, which are red. The tails and ears –yeah, they have ears, but usually you can't see those – are from both their parents. Their world was made up of people who have tails and ears, though it varies. Some are, like, rabbits, or…iguanas, or foxes. Sarah and Koto are raccoons."

"Um….weird…"

Ina had to use a spell to open Gwen's door. The room was very plain. There were no pictures, no books, and it looked rather dusty. A spell cleared the dust, but no matter how obsessively Ina looked, there was nothing. After an hour, she gave up on finding anything and wandered out to the living room, where Fade had flopped onto the couch.

"Nothing in there," Ina sighed. "Gwen showed up to say how long we'll be here?"

"She hasn't," Fade said, shrugging.

Hours later, the displaced teens were asleep, Fade on the couch, Ina sprawled messily over two armchairs.